The Other Face Of A Demon
by Doug2
Summary: The Charmed Ones have a demon to dispossess. Or do they?


**HAVE SPELL WILL TRAVEL**

Phoebe was falling asleep behind the counter at the Enchantment Bookstore. The Charmed Ones had been up late vanquishing a demon living in an old college dorm preying on women. Phoebe barely had time to get home, change and get to work. A harried looking man came in the store and stepped up to the counter.

"Please help me, help me. I think my wife's possessed. I need a book on how to repossess a demon, I mean dispossess a demon!" he cried.

"What makes you think she's possessed?" asked Phoebe trying to hold back a giggle.

"She has been running around the house threatening our children and claiming that we are all doomed. I don't know what to do and hoped your magic bookshop her could help," he said pleading with her.

"Has her head spun around and she spit out pea soup?" asked Phoebe half-kidding.

"No?" he replied. "She had been throwing things around and making them stand still in the middle of the room in a most weird fashion."

"FREEZING THINGS IN MID-AIR!" Phoebe said surprised.

"Yes, yes, you could say that. Can you help us?" he asked.

"I may know someone who could look into your problem," Phoebe told him. "Come to this address at seven tonight. I don't think anything we have here can help you."

"Thank you, oh, thank you very much!" he said leaving the store.

Phoebe's boss came over after hearing that exchanged. "Isn't there some book we could have ordered for him? I hate to turn away customers,

Phoebe," she said sounding worried.

"No, he needed professional help!" exclaimed our little witch.

At a quarter of seven, a stranger appeared at Halliwell Manor. He knocked on the door and Phoebe answered.

"Good evening, I hope I'm not too early. I was anxious and couldn't wait any longer!" he said breathlessly.

"Come in. I'm Phoebe and these are my sisters Prue and Piper. Welcome to Halliwell Manor. And you are?" asked Phoebe.

"Carl Simon. I'm a contractor in the east end," explained Mr. Simon.

"Please to meet you Mr. Simon," said Prue. "Come in and sit down."

"You three ladies are all very young. How can you help me?" he asked.

"You mentioned a demon and we have had a bit of experience with them. You see, we're witches," said Phoebe.

"Well, thank you anyway. I must be going," Mr. Simon said as he turned for the door. Prue flicked her finger and closed it in front of him.

"You did say your wife was doing some unnatural things. If she can be possessed by a demon, why can't there be witches? Our job is to help the innocent, like your wife. Please sit down, Mr. Simon," Prue said as a chair moved over to him.

"We'll I'm be a..All right then. Witches you say. I'll be a ..." said Mr. Simon.

"We're the good guys, Mr. Simon!" chimed in Piper with the cutest expression on her face.

"Now I've heard and seen everything. Where's your cauldron, brooms and black hats?" he asked looking around.

"No broom riding, no black hats, no running around on Halloween, but we're guilty about having a cauldron. Now please tell your story to us," invited Phoebe.

"All right then. My wife is a lawyer and has a criminal practice in the east end. About six months ago she took on a client named Kratum or Cractus on a murder rap. She not only got him off, but he promised her many other clients for her services. She began getting many new cases and became very prosperous from these clients. Except for the very large retainers she was receiving nothing seemed wrong. Then referrals from Mr. Cratus showed up asking her to do things that violated legal ethics and my wife's own conscious. This went on until this week when Mr. Cratus showed up again demanding that she help his friends saying that he owned her and her soul. His last remark would normally be dismissed as the raving of a lunatic, for he did sound like one, but my wife changed two days ago. She just doesn't look the same or act the same. It's like she is filled with evil. She no longer dresses well, goes into work doing many of these illegal things he wanted done and comes home very agitated. She runs around the house destroying things, swearing at the children, not doing any of her household chores. And at night, when were in bed. How I do I put this to you ladies. She's very aggressive like she had never been before. She frightens the children and scares the HELL out of me. I don't know what to do," he said beginning to sob.

Piper came over to comfort him. "If anyone can help her we can. Right, Prue?"

"Wait here while we do some checking. Ladies," said Prue.

The Charmed Ones headed up to the attic and looked up the name Cractus.

"Here it is! Cractus or rather Cractium is a demon that grants people wishes in exchange for their obedience or souls, if you call it that. His wife may or may not have unwittingly gotten involved with him. He probably wants her to now to do favors for others of his followers. There is an incantation to banish him. I think we can help Mr. Simon rather easily," said Prue.

"Agreed! Let's deal with him tonight and quickly," replied Phoebe.

After reaching the living room, Phoebe told a delighted Mr. Simon that they would go with him to see his wife and dispossess her from the demon Cractium.

After a long drive through the city, they reached a large home with a beautiful view of the bay and Berkley. Inside they found the house trashed and a neighbor cowling with two children in the corner. The wife was walking up and down in the living room ranting and raving until she saw the Charmed Ones.

"Who are these creatures? What have you been doing with them you traitorous little (expletive deleted)!" She picked up a stool and threw it toward Piper. Prue sent it flying in another direction.

"Cool!" said one of the frightened kids.

Piper waved her arms and the wife froze solid.

"What, who? How did you do that?" said the neighbor in the corner with the kids.

"Superb concentration," quipped Piper.

"Let's get this done with." said Prue, "Sisters all."

And the recited:

Demon of darkness;

Inhabitant of the night;

Send ye away;

And out of our sight.

Then nothing happened. The wife remained frozen.

"It didn't work!" cried Piper pointing toward the demon statue.

"Try this one. Crateus, Reyo, Walstonus, Martius, Rex!" said Mr. Simon who now had an evil grin and loud booming evil voice. "There! Your powers are now bound. No telekinesis, no time freezing and no premonitions."

Prue and Piper quickly tried to defend themselves, but they had a major power shortage.

"Uh, oh!" said Piper as they ran for the door that was blocked by the three of the other occupants who were now looking very demonic themselves. They were trapped in a nest of demons.

The Charmed Ones were led downstairs and locked in a steel cage and told that they would later be killed and their powers stolen when the full moon rose to the top of the sky.

"Cages. I am sick of cages. Demons have no imagination. Why can't they put us up at the Fairmont?" asked an agitated Piper.

"That's not helping us Piper," sighed Prue.

"Usually we're not all trapped in the same place without our powers. One of us is usually free to save the others. I THOUGHT that was part of the reason for the Power Of Three. I'm sorry, I'm pissed!" cried Piper as she sat down in the far corner, crossed her arms and looked extremely peeved.

"All right, we have a couple of hours to midnight. What do we have to save ourselves with?" asked Phoebe.

"How do we get out of a stainless steel cage with one inch thick bars? All of our powers have been taken from us!" said Piper.

"Not necessarily," said Phoebe. "He mentioned telekinesis, premonitions and freezing powers. Prue, do you think you can project yourself outside of the cage?"

"OK, let me try," said Prue who closed her eyes and concentrated. She pictured being outside of the cage, thinking of another place to be and she materialized in front of her two sisters. It was disturbing seeing herself sitting there in deep mediation and looking down at herself in the same body in a different place. She could sense how much effort she was expending to do this.

"Prue," cried Phoebe, "Get the key over on the wall."

Prue nodded her head in recognition and walked over. She reached for the key and her hand passed through it. Prue got a pained look on her face and looked back at Phoebe.

"Let's go to Plan B," said Phoebe thinking hard.

The Prue next to her opened her eyes and the projected Prue vanished.

"So what's Plan B?" asked Prue. "I'm open to suggestions."

"The Book of Shadows. Go visit it and look for a way to unbind our powers" said Phoebe.

So Prue closed her eyes and concentrated on the attic. Instantly she found herself home. The Book of Shadows was still opened to the spell to banish Cractium. The demons had given them a wrong name so the spell had no effect on them. Prue reached for the pages and again her fingers passed through the object she was reaching for. On instinct the waved her hand at the pages, but her bound powers did not move the pages.

"Now what? Phoebe, this isn't working. It could use some help here.

Leo? Mom? Grams? ANYBODY?" thought Prue.

The book glowed slightly and the pages started flipping. They stopped on the spell that originally gave them their powers.

"Why didn't I think of that?" thought Prue who ended her projected trip and woke up back in the cage.

"Well, what did you find out?" said Piper excitedly.

"Phoebe, do you remember the spell that unbound our powers last year? The Book of Shadows flipped right to it. Some guardian angel suggested that," explained Prue.

"How could I forget it? And it was on a night of the FULL MOON just like TONIGHT. So it has to work," said Phoebe.

"It better work, Phoebes or we're toast," chimed in Piper.

Pheebs began to recite:

"Hear now the words of the witches,

The secrets we hid in the night,

The oldest of old gods are invoked here,

Great works of magic are sought,

In this night and in this hour,

I call upon the ancient power,

Bring your powers to we sisters three,

We want the power, give us the power."

Storm clouds came in, lightning flashed and the sisters glowed slightly and the basement went dark again. The sisters looked at each other, Prue arched one eyebrow, put her hands together and pushed the bars apart. Prue looked at her sisters saying, "We're back!" Piper stepped through the bars looking at them strangely.

"You couldn't have had the key fly over here? You had to do the superwoman impression? Huh?" said Piper.

"Totally cool. You have style, sister dear," said Phoebe quite impressed. "Let's go out the back and surprised them from the front. This way."

They sneaked out up the old basement steps leading to the alley and walked around to the front peeking in the window. The demons were having a riotous celebration since they were the creatures that had captured the Charmed Ones.

Piper froze the entire bunch of demons and Prue propelled the door open.

Using their standard "Send them to hell" spell, all five of the demons momentarily unfroze and with a surprised cry of pain vanished through a vortex. The sisters were left alone in the trashed house.

"Five at one blow. Wow. Gift wrapped and delivered into hands of the Prince of Darkness. That's one good night's work!" said Phoebe with the rush of adrenaline still surging through her.

"Yes, but it was you who referred him to us in the first place!" exclaimed Prue.

"But he seemed like he needed help. Remember, we're suppose to protect the innocent," replied Phoebe a little timidly.

"You put us in a very deadly situation, you didn't check his story out..." continued Prue.

"..and we won. We won. Doesn't that.." said Phoebe.

"...THIS time we did. But when you're up against demons..." said Prue.

"Prue, Phoebe. STOP IT! Please settle down. We all agreed to help out Mr. Simon. The demons are just getting smarter, meaning we'll have to be smarter from now on. Remember when we first joined this little sorority, we were told that anyone could be a warlock or demon? We just have to keep our guards up," said Piper negotiating between her sisters for the millionth time.

"Prue. Piper's right!" said Phoebe looking over at her sister.

"Fine!" replied Prue. "Next time we'll ALL do our homework."

"Umm. Good. Now let's head home. Tomorrow will possess us very soon," quipped Piper.

"Ha-ha-ha!" said Prue slightly disgusted.

"Good one, Pipe," grinned Pheebs.

And off went the enchanting Halliwell sisters toward a new day and another adventure.

THE END


End file.
